Can confirm. And it affects medicine outside the US as well.
A bit over a decade ago, one very popular modern antidepressant drug used to be citalopram (cipramil). This is the racemic mixture (meaning it contains both the left and right-handed versions). The new one, escitalopram (lexapro) only contains the active stereoisomer. Its dosage is exactly half of the previous version because racemic mixture always (?) occurs in an exact 50/50 proportion.
Both drugs work perfectly well. No statistically significant difference in effect or side-effect. You just don't get the inactive half of the molecules.
Escitalopram wouldn't exist if it weren't for citalopram's patent expiring. Or maybe they were just sitting on the purified version, biding their time.
This is a straight counterexample of the argument that the insane costs of the healthcare system in the US somehow pays for new drug research all over the world.
This industry called "drug research" simply isn't motivated to improve health (not just "find better drugs"), they are just researching whatever is driven by profit.
They will just as happily waste billions of research on a drug that is almost literally identical to one that already exists and is known to work, a copy that nobody needed, only so they can patent it again.
At least they replaced it with something equivalent, instead of something worse. Because they would if they could (and given the state of reproducibility of medical research, probably did at some point or another).
That is not research, that is throwing money into a bottomless pit. Which is what the featured article is about.
Drug research in the US is no exception. You could do so much better research if it was done efficiently (and as a bonus take some pride in your work).
The fact that US drug research dominates the world market is not something that the rest of the world should be thankful for. You waste billions upon billions on such an industry, of course it's gonna dominate. Doesn't mean it's good. Other countries could do efficient drug research but if they don't get billions budgets (because you don't need it), they can't waste it on marketing and push their version of a drug no matter what.
Just because something is expensive, doesn't mean it's good.
Exactly. Somebody I know with scientific training and depression was offered Lexapro (escitalopram) to replace a citalopram script: "It works better for some people." She wasn't so depressed that she didn't explain the scam to her doc, who accepted the explanation and stopped prescribing the new version with a reduced concentration of the ineffective stereoisomer.
But this doc wasn't getting visits and kickbacks from Allergan.
A bit over a decade ago, one very popular modern antidepressant drug used to be citalopram (cipramil). This is the racemic mixture (meaning it contains both the left and right-handed versions). The new one, escitalopram (lexapro) only contains the active stereoisomer. Its dosage is exactly half of the previous version because racemic mixture always (?) occurs in an exact 50/50 proportion.
Both drugs work perfectly well. No statistically significant difference in effect or side-effect. You just don't get the inactive half of the molecules.
Escitalopram wouldn't exist if it weren't for citalopram's patent expiring. Or maybe they were just sitting on the purified version, biding their time.
This is a straight counterexample of the argument that the insane costs of the healthcare system in the US somehow pays for new drug research all over the world.
This industry called "drug research" simply isn't motivated to improve health (not just "find better drugs"), they are just researching whatever is driven by profit.
They will just as happily waste billions of research on a drug that is almost literally identical to one that already exists and is known to work, a copy that nobody needed, only so they can patent it again.
At least they replaced it with something equivalent, instead of something worse. Because they would if they could (and given the state of reproducibility of medical research, probably did at some point or another).
That is not research, that is throwing money into a bottomless pit. Which is what the featured article is about.
Drug research in the US is no exception. You could do so much better research if it was done efficiently (and as a bonus take some pride in your work).
The fact that US drug research dominates the world market is not something that the rest of the world should be thankful for. You waste billions upon billions on such an industry, of course it's gonna dominate. Doesn't mean it's good. Other countries could do efficient drug research but if they don't get billions budgets (because you don't need it), they can't waste it on marketing and push their version of a drug no matter what.
Just because something is expensive, doesn't mean it's good.